Sunday, August 10, 2014

Swap, Share, Give from Down Under

My friend Bec from Books, Bugs and Boxes is hosting aswap, share, give
post and some great Aussie Bloggers have teamed up to review each others' products and some lucky person will win all the reviewed products from us. So make sure you visit Bec to enter.
There is a rafflecopter link at the end of this post.

If you need/want to learn about Myths and Legends then this pack is a must to have.

I do not hesitate recommending this product at all.

It is aimed at Year 4 and above and in 34 pages there is so much to do and learn and show what you know.

I just love it! My kids loved it too!

To review this pack I used my own two kids and not my grade. My daughter had been working on a similar topic and this was great, I was able to ask her questions and see how well this product stood with rigour. I was so pleased as the questions asked of each team member were specific and well thought out.

The end result is a PowerPoint from each group that show their collected research.

Melinda has included comprehensive notes and explanations and the whole pack is so easy to follow.

The introduction, background notes, project description, project instruction, using technology, resources and preparation pages all lead beautifully into the tuning in section.

They are all easy to read and produce serious learning outcomes.

There is the capacity to have seven groups with four students in each group.

There is rigour to each task, as within each group of four, each person has a distinct role.

These badges were excellent for seeing who was doing what each role and allowed me to get all the Media Specialists together to check skill level in a mini lesson and then let them go back and complete their tasks.

Something else I really enjoyed was the conversations between not only kids in a group, but across groups with the same role.

They helped each other out.

Great for collaboration.

These roles are outlined in mini posters, which we glued into our books to keep us on track.

Next come the explicit question sheets. Each group has a different big question and all the contributing questions go back to that big over riding question.

Melinda has really thought about the end in mind here.

As the culmination is a PowerPoint by each group and they come together to add to a whole grade jigsaw.

Each group has set of colored coded questions.

So the red group has a page, but the page is divided up for the four roles in the group.

I just loved this accountability as there was no room for misunderstanding the end point and what was needed by everyone within each group.

Nobody was left wondering what to do.

For those of you who have followed my blog know I need to know about work samples and assessment.

Melinda has included this as well.

The matrix is great for recording thinking as the kids move through the unit. I am and always will be a fan of Venn Diagrams as a graphic organiser.

Assessment is easy to record and because the kids are working independently you can have rich conversations with them and record this so well on the proforma that Melinda has in the pack.

Here are some power point slides that were worked on - making a limit of four slides was perfect.

Key word searches are so important to narrow down searches and information.

The end results showed deep understanding and oral presentation along with ICT (tech) skills.

If you would like to check out a freebie from Melinda's store have a look at this pack. I love Melinda's style. There is a dedicated and detailed explanation about the product and then this freebie contains the recording sheets for each of the five components of design. There is also a great assessment tracking sheet. This pack is aimed at senior primary. Amazing freebie!

Remember to go to Bec's blog to check out other posts/reviews and enter to win a copy of all the reviewed products.